Disney+ Hotstar reported its biggest decline in paid subscribers to date - a fall of 3.8 million subscribers, or 6 per cent of its total - in the October-December period. The drop in numbers came after two warnings by the company that Hotstar's paid subscriber base would shrink as it didn't have streaming rights for the Indian Premier League (IPL) for the 2023-27 media cycle. The IPL would start on April 1 this year and continue till May 28.
With the threat of a third Covid-19 wave looming large, companies are scrambling to protect employees and keep operations safe--from a no-jab-no-entry-at-workplace policy to ramping up vaccination, it's an all-out effort to prevent the scale of devastation seen in the first two waves. At least two top steel companies--Tata Steel and ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India (AM/NS India)--are pushing for vaccination certificates for entry into work premises. AM/NS India, a joint venture between world's leading steelmaker, ArcelorMittal, and Japan's Nippon Steel, is set to make vaccination the certificate a requirement from July 1.
As many as 81 per cent people support having rules for consumer e-commerce, but want more services-based platforms to have more clearly defined roles, a survey by community social media platform LocalCircles has found. The survey asked respondents to answer questions based on the recent draft Rules proposed by the ministry of consumer affairs. The responses found 81 per cent consumers wanting sales of products and services over electronic or digital networks to be governed by a set of electronic commerce rules.
Business activity has fallen by a fourth of the pre-COVID levels due to lockdowns imposed by states to contain the spread of the second wave of COVID-19, Japanese brokerage Nomura said on Tuesday. However, it said the falling activity levels will have a muted economic impact and maintained its growth estimates for the year, saying the lockdowns present "downside risks". As of April 25, the Nomura India Business Resumption Index (NIBRI) registered its steepest weekly fall in over a year of 8.5 percentage points to 75.9, which is 24 percentage points below pre-pandemic normal, the brokerage said in a statement.
Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday announced a Rs 75,000 crore investment in new energy business over the next three years as the operator of the world's largest oil refinery pivots towards a greener and cleaner version. Reliance will build solar manufacturing units, a battery factory for energy storage, a fuel cell-making plant and an electrolyzer unit to produce green hydrogen as a part of the business, chairman Mukesh Ambani said at the company's annual general meeting with shareholders on Thursday. It will also set up 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar power generation capacity by 2030 and invest in setting up a carbon fibre plant.
With two of its clusters - R-Series and Satellite Series - likely to start production in the next two years, the company looks to turn around production from this business.
Musk has not yet offered details about how his content moderation council will work.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd's plans for investing Rs 75,000 crore in solar, batteries, fuel cells and hydrogen could create valuation of $36 billion (Rs 2.6 lakh crore) for the new energy business, Wall Street brokerage Bernstein Research said in a report. Reliance currently has three verticals -- oil-to-chemical (O2C) business that houses its oil refineries, petrochemical plants and fuel retailing business; digital services that comprises telecom arm Jio; and retail including e-commerce. New Energy will be the fourth vertical. At the company's annual general meeting of shareholders last month, Ambani announced a plan to invest Rs 75,000 crore in a new energy business over the next 3 years in the next stage in its transformation.
Fast-moving consumer goods major Dabur India is set to enter the branded spices and seasoning category. It has signed an agreement to acquire 51 per cent in Badshah Masala for a cash consideration of Rs 587.52 crore. The acquisition, the company says, is in line with its strategic intent to expand its food biz to Rs 500 crore in three years.
At risk of entrenched rough times are sectors like hospitality and those with discretionary spends.
Traders' body CAIT on Thursday urged the government to impose a ban on Amazon's e-commerce portal and its operations in India, accusing the global e-tailing giant of indulging in predatory pricing, deep discounting and inventory control. Addressing a press conference, CAIT secretary-general Praveen Khandelwal demanded an "immediate ban on Amazon's portal and its operations in India" and an investigation against the company in a time-bound manner. He also urged the government to probe the business practices of Amazon and Flipkart. However, responding to the allegations, both Amazon and Flipkart said they remain compliant with Indian laws.
Trends that added colour to workplace culture in 2022.
Streamlining its delivery network and shifting focus back to the mass segment - at a time when competitors were struggling to restore normalcy in operations due to the pandemi - aided the firm's revival.
Bankrupt Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) has sold the entire stake in the waste management arm IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure & Services (IEISL) and its subsidiaries to EverEnviro Resource Management (EverEnviro), an arm of the PE major Everstone Group, the companies said in separate statements. Though the value of the deal was not specifically disclosed, the crippled IL&FS -- which is under bankruptcy proceedings in NCLT -- said the sale will reduce its overall debt by Rs 1,200 crore, which is the combined debt of entities under the group's environment businesses. IL&FS Environmental Infrastructure & Services (IEISL) is one of the leading integrated waste management companies that is into municipal solid waste management apart from presence across various segments including construction and demolition, collection and transportation and waste to energy and currently manages over 8,400 tonnes per day solid municipal waste.
Sheikh, who is very optimistic of the industry sailing though this tough phase, thanked Mohit Arora, the owner of Supertech, who has been sponsoring him since 2017.
The plan includes step-wise expansion of a crucial credit guarantee net, establishment of an unprecedented number of functional clusters and increased government procurement from MSMEs.
Executive lounges with happy hours, complimentary hors d'oeuvres, and complimentary services have been the norm - but not anymore.
in the last three months, brands such as Tata Starbucks, KFC, and Pizza Hut have launched drive-through or kerb-side delivery services at their restaurants to catch consumers nervous about dining in.
Online retailers pointed out that their delivery staff is being stopped by local police and urged authorities to streamline the movement of delivery agents and goods.
Reliance Retail will acquire the retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses of the Future Group. Future Group's financial and insurance businesses are not part of the deal.
The fast-growing, high-margin branded spices business is turning out to be an interesting growth opportunity, which to an extent was reflected in the Sunrise-ITC deal, with multiple parties from PE to strategic players joining the fray.
Citing people with knowledge of the situation, the report said that some managers were being asked to "draw up lists of employees to cut."
Currently, India recycles around 300 of the 1,000 ships which are demolished per annum globally. However, countries like Japan, Europe and the US were not sending their ships for recycling to India in the absence of ratification of a global convention. That scenario is set to change with the Recycling of Ships Act, 2019.
Maharashtra, which contributes between 12 and 15 per cent of appliances sales, announced lockdown-like curbs, meaning there will be no business for the second half of the month as well from the state.
Billionaire Elon Musk has completed his $44 billion takeover of Twitter and fired the social media company's four top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal and legal executive Vijaya Gadde. The New York Times said that Musk, the world's richest man, closed the deal to buy Twitter on Thursday. Citing people with knowledge of the situation, the report said that Musk "has started cleaning house at Twitter with the firings of at least four top executives". The Twitter executives who were fired include Agrawal, Gadde, chief financial officer Ned Segal and general counsel Sean Edgett.
Such a drastic intervention overrides existing private bilateral commercial contracts
As per reports, Sachin Sawant, a spokesperson for the Congress party, a part of the ruling coalition in Maharashtra, has alleged a conspiracy to shift Bollywood, the Hindi film industry, out of Mumbai.
Future's home retailing interests, including furniture and furnishings, are housed under Praxis Home Retail, which was created in FY18 when the group demerged the business from Future Retail.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries has announced the contours of carving out of its oil-to-chemicals (O2C) business into an independent unit with a USD 25 billion loan from the parent, as it looks to unlock value by selling stakes to global investors like Saudi Aramco.
The NSE held 25 to 100 per cent stakes in these entities through its subsidiary NSE Investments as of September.
NRI businessman and Lulu group chairman M A Yusuff Ali, who had a miraculous escape on April 11 after his helicopter crash-landed on marshy land in Kochi, has undergone a spinal surgery at a hospital in Abu Dhabi, the company said.
Close to 21.5 per cent of this will be sold to Japan's Nippon Life, which will then become the sole promoter of the fund house.
Online auto classified platform CarTrade Tech on Tuesday said it fixed a price band of Rs 1,585-1,618 a share for its nearly Rs 2,999-crore initial public offer. The initial public offering (IPO) will open for subscription on August 9 and conclude on August 11. The bidding for anchor investors will open on August 6, the company announced. The initial share-sale will be entirely an offer for sale (OFS) of 18,532,216 equity shares.
'This pandemic has made me so much more aware about the situations of others.'
The new obsession on cost control is powered by the company's 'GEAR' (Generate idea, evaluate, action and realise the idea) programme.
Further stimulus measures are expected in the upcoming Budget where the focus is likely to be on reforms, including some structural measures such as reducing red tape and boosting foreign direct investment. The meeting with industrialists is in the series of discussions that Modi has had during the last couple of weeks to seek suggestions to revive growth.
Indian business, on quite a different trajectory from its global counterpart, remains relatively insulated from any kind of backlash.
Enactment of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code has been instrumental in pushing up India's ranking in the 'Doing Business' report
Swiss brokerage UBS joins European banking peer HSBC in shutting down its offshore derivative business
A key government official involved in initiatives to make doing business in the country easier said improving the ranking to 50th in a year was not possible but the country could certainly do that over two years.